If one harbours anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible.
George OrwellRead
One of the effects of a safe and civilized life is an immense over sensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A safe and civilized life can lead to an excessive sensitivity that distorts our perception of fundamental emotions.
George Orwell's quote suggests that living in a safe, civilized environment can heighten our sensitivity to emotions, to the point where we might find our natural, primal feelings unappealing or repulsive. This over-sensitiveness can alienate us from our true selves and the rawness of human experience, leading to a disconnection from genuine emotional responses.
Themes
SensitivenessCivilizedEmotionsHuman ExperienceOver-Sensitivity
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the emotional impacts of modern living during a philosophy class.
More from George Orwell
All quotes βThe creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
George OrwellRead
Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.
George OrwellRead
Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.
George OrwellRead
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.
George OrwellRead
It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.
George OrwellRead
Similar quotes
We ask ourselves and each of us may wonder: Does the Lord feel truly at home in my life? Do we allow him to do a 'cleansing' in our hearts and to drive out the idols, those attitudes of greed, jealousy, worldliness, envy and hatred, that habit of gossiping and tearing down others?
Pope FrancisRead
For no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come.
Francis BaconRead
I thought if war did not include killing, I'd like to see one every year.
Maya AngelouRead
Take away grievances from some people and you remove their reasons for living; most of us are nourished by hope, but a considerable minority get psychic nutrition from their resentments, and would waste away purposelessly without them.
Sydney J. HarrisRead
Feminism involves so much more than gender equality and it involves so much more than gender. Feminism must involve consciousness of capitalism (I mean the feminism that I relate to, and there are multiple feminisms, right). So it has to involve a consciousness of capitalism and racism and colonialism and post-colonialities, and ability and more genders than we can even imagine and more sexualities than we ever thought we could name.
Angela DavisRead
Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves - sometimes split into quarters - which grind on each other. Not only individuals but states have thus a confirmed dyspepsia.
Henry David ThoreauRead